Nkata bay and Majoka lodge was nice. Very cute and fun built with a lot of small huts in a steep downhill. Toilet and shower with views to the lake, all very fairy tale style.
A nice bar and restaurant with only european guests. I choose to camp next to the water. Love hearing the sound of the waves next to me.
I forgot my computer in the last guest house but the Rumanian cyclist does me a great favour in bringing it. When he arrives it is allready afternoon and I feel like staying. So I swim with the parasites in the water ( https://sv.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sn%C3%A4ckfeber ) . The water is so nice. I cant resist. Even if it rains now for a couple of hours at least every day it still gets hot and taking a swim in this lake is so great.
I do one important thing. After talking to a Canadian long distance motorcyclist he lends me some glue for fixating the mutters of the spokes.
So I unscrew all spokes a bit, then on with the glue andtighten them all. Took about 3 hours.
I leave super early the next day. Actually I am up at 04.00 and start packing.
5.30 I am sitting on the bicycle and dawn is breaking. I go up the 6 km long hill to the main road.
Then I start going pretty fast. I go past great rubber plantations.
I am chased by the rain and before it starts raining a lot I go in to a farmhouse with some kids around a fire.
They make me hot water for my baby- porridge I eat it with a fistful of peanuts and honey. This is my daily breakfast that I bring with me. It is nice even if it is very small conversations with the few english words they know. Only for a moment it gets a litle quiet and sad when talking about there parents. The only ones living here are the two grandparents, 2 daughters 14 and 15 and a boy. Yes, there is also a baby from the 15 year old girl. Parents died in aids. But we have a nice breakfast. I give them lollipops. And a litle money.
I go fast but it is far. At eleven, after 50 km, I have already had a flat tyre and I have exchanged one spoke. It is not only breaking the bicycle, it is wearing on my nerves. I get super tired and I work slow. Probably took me an hour for fixing the flat tyre.
The spokes really worry me and I check the backweels spokes at least every half hour. But I only change one second spoke in the rest of the day. As I count the hours left of my early lunch I know there is a small chance of going allmost 200 km, the goal for today, before dark. So I focus. I am feeling low but to make it I have to stay positive. So I think things like, I am down now but then it usually gets better soon. And instead of thinking about the bad bicycle and rain and long distance I think about this as "allmost Vätternrundan" as a friend wrote on facebook. I also think of the perfect road and the temperature and that I am acctually doing all this in Africa. When I get close to ten positive things I allready feel better. I am strong. I can do this.
Weather becomes perfect. I go hard on the flats, I stand in the uphills and downhills and I go imensly slow over bumps. After a bit I find a guy on a mountainbike going thesame direction. I think of him as my racing team mate. He is first racing against me but he realises I will not let him go ahead.
I am in the lead 90% of the time. But I dont care. It is nice to be a team. We stop in villages for water and I see my back tyre needs to be changed. Soon. I can see the rubber is worn of to the fabric in three places. If I go carefull and not hit any stones I may make it without a flat tyre. I consider changing it before dark but instead take my chances and go on. The guy stays probably for about 50 km, then he cant keep up the speed anymore. I feel more content the closer I get to my goal.
But I am tired. I pass this flodded river and stop short one last time. It is very sunny and about 30 degrees. A slight welcoming sidewind from the lake, if any wind, during most of the day.
Another guy racing with me is this dad and sun with a nice bike.
I go fast all day and finally I reach at eight o clock. 191 km!! I made it, I reached the city I aimed for!
I take one of the first guesthouses in town. 5 USD including breakfast. I bought some grilled fisch by the big road and I only eat that and some rice for dinner. But I only take half the fisch, sooo many bones.
Now I am on the bed, falling asleep all the time...
I made it. :)
In the morning I change back tyre... :)
